I heard something on a podcast the other day that surprised me. So I found the data and crunched the numbers myself, so that I would know (I love playing with spreadsheets).

It works like this. Our southern neighbor, South Carolina, pays $24 billion in federal taxes. However, the state receives in federal spending (benefits, grants, contracts, and salaries and wages) $48.8 billion. That comes to $4,978.26 per South Carolinian that comes in from the federal government. It becomes spending money.

In the other direction a northern neighbor, Delaware, payed about $22.6 billion in taxes but received only a little more than $9 billion in federal spending. That comes to a deficit of $14,278.28, that’s not being spent in that state.

What’s interesting is that of the 30 states that benefit from federal spending, 21 voted to elect Trump as President, 14 of them by more than 10 percentage points. Of the remaining states that are paying more in federal taxes than they are receiving, 9 voted to elect Hillary Clinton by more than 10 percentage points – that’s 9 of only 13.

When you put it all together, citizens of red states gain $915.70 from the federal government, and deep red states get $1,874.60 to spend. Blue staters pay $176.84 and people living in deep blue states give up $2,101,84.

So where’s the logic in voting for a candidate who promises to reform federal taxes?